


Fifteen Minutes or Less

by orphan_account



Series: One Shots [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Caring Sherlock, Cuddling, Drowning, Fluff, Gen, Huddling For Warmth, Hurt/Comfort, Hypothermia, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-04
Updated: 2014-08-04
Packaged: 2018-02-11 17:18:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2076465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>In water colder than five degrees Celsius, a person can get hypothermia in less than fifteen minutes. John could remember falling, hitting, sinking. He could remember grabbing the girl and falling under, sucking in a lungful of water. He remembered struggling to get back up, pushing the girl towards the boat on the water, going down again, and then nothing, the water moving in and out of his lungs freely. </i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fifteen Minutes or Less

Drowning is peaceful. Everything stills, hushes, like a dark blanket has been cast over the world to mute out the unimportant details. You’re floating. You’re safe. You aren’t cold anymore.

The events leading up to it are what are painful.

The initial shock of the cold water as your back hits it. The struggle to keep near the surface as your water-clogged clothes pull you down, your stunned mind from the fall and the hard impact making the struggle nearly impossible. The panic as you take that last breath that doesn’t hold nearly enough oxygen. And then the sinking, the thrashing, the pain in your skull as you hold onto your limited supply of oxygen, hoping, waiting for someone to grab you.

Your body does the rest.

You pass out, and immediately inhale, desperate for air, but you only get water. The foreign substance wakes you up, but by then you’re already dying.

And it’s okay, because you don’t hurt anymore.

 

* * *

 

John’s peace and warmth were violently shoved aside at the first hard, icy breath he sucked down his water-filled throat. His eyes flew open and he coughed hard enough for the water to come back up, spilling over his dangerously blue lips.

“John? John!”

He hardly heard the faraway voice of Sherlock screaming at him from only a distance of two or so metres.

His eyelids fluttered, barely registering the bright yellow safety vests of the two paramedics that were working on him. He couldn’t feel their hands, probing for vital information from his freeze-shocked body. He couldn’t register their breathing, even though one was directly adjacent to his ear. Everything was fuzzy.

“Did she make it?” he asked, his voice barely more than a canted gasp of breath.

One of the paramedics nodded, glancing past where Lestrade was holding off Sherlock. “She’s being taken to the hospital. She’s fine.”

John’s lips twitched up in what should have been a smile but looked more like a grimace.

In water colder than five degrees Celsius, a person can get hypothermia in less than fifteen minutes. John could remember falling, hitting, sinking. He could remember grabbing the girl and falling under, sucking in a lungful of water. He remembered struggling to get back up, pushing the girl towards the boat on the water, going down again, and then nothing, the water moving in and out of his lungs freely.

He estimated he had been in there for five minutes, no more than ten.

Didn’t mean he didn’t have hypothermia, but he doubted it was severe.

“Pulse is evening,” one of the paramedics said, and John felt fingers moving away from his neck.

He recognised the texture of a blanket over his bare chest, heat coming off of it. Good, good.

Time dragged on, flickering behind John’s narrowed eyelids as a blur of colour, whooshed past his ears as a cacophony of unidentifiable breaths of sound.

“Alright, he’s stable. Get him home and keep him warm. I want a call to the hospital from one of you in the morning to report vital signs, got it?”

John stirred, blinking his eyes open further. He tried to focus on the face that was suddenly above him, but he didn’t really need to. “Hey Sherlock,” he mumbled, sitting up as the other man scooped an arm under his shoulders.

“Come on, idiot, let’s get you in front of the heaters,” Sherlock said, his arms tight around John as they walked in Lestrade’s wake to the waiting silver police car. “In. Watch your head,” he instructed, his voice remarkably gentle for what John was accustomed to hearing. Maybe it was the hypothermia.

“’m not an idiot,” John murmured, staring out of the windscreen as Greg started to drive them home, a bit faster than what was absolutely necessary. He shivered, and Sherlock immediately turned the heaters on him, pulling him closer.

“You jumped into the fucking Thames in the middle of January,” Sherlock growled, burying his face in John’s neck. John had to appreciate how good that felt – Sherlock’s warm cheek pressed tightly against his frost-touched skin.

“I saved the life of a ten year old girl,” John corrected, leaning back against Sherlock and closing his eyes, trying to save his energy and seek out every pulse of warmth Sherlock was offering.

“Doesn’t make you any less of an idiot,” Sherlock muttered, his lips brushing John’s bare shoulder.

John shivered again, though not from the cold.

He didn’t speak for the rest of the ride – neither of them did – though when they reached the flat, John managed a rough ‘thank you’ through chattering teeth to Greg.

Sherlock ushered him upstairs, ignoring Mrs Hudson and catching John when he tripped on the stairs. John grit his teeth, his muscles still not wanting to work properly.

“Bathtub?” Sherlock asked, hesitating on the threshold, his body rocking towards the bathroom as if he had already decided to go there.

John shook his head in opposition, pointing at the fireplace. “I’d rather sit in front of the fire with you and a hot cuppa, to be honest,” he said, his teeth chattering unhelpfully.

Sherlock groaned, obviously on the precipice of arguing, but instead he just shook his head and did as John requested, moving him to the front of the fireplace.

John watched silently as Sherlock moved about, crouching down to start up a fire, turning back to John and stripping him of his jeans and shoes and socks, setting down a pillow and forcing John to sit on it. John hummed, smiling at the clinical concern that Sherlock showed as first one and then another blanket was wrapped around him.

“Just milk in mine, please,” he murmured, watching Sherlock stand up on those lanky legs of his and walk into the kitchen. When Sherlock returned, he had John’s tea in hand, and he passed it over before sitting down behind John, his arms encircling John’s waist.

John hummed, sipping his tea, closing his eyes as the warmth trickled down, seeping into every nerve ending, every vein, filling him with heat and comfort.

“John,” Sherlock whispered, his head resting heavily on John’s shoulder.

John looked over, frowned when he saw tears building in those beautiful glasz eyes.

“I love you,” he choked out, his arms tightening around John’s waist while the rest of him remained as motionless as the ocean after a hurricane. “Don’t… I can’t lose you.”

John nodded, reaching up and stroking gently through Sherlock’s hair. Only then did Sherlock’s eyes close, letting the tears fall, pattering onto the blanket that secured John’s continued warmth.

“I promise,” John murmured, leaning forward, repeating the quiet breath over tear-damp cheeks and fluttering eyelids and barely responsive lips.

Sherlock pressed a hand to John’s chest, his heart thumping strongly away beneath his palm, while his other hand slipped up to John’s shoulder, his scar the perfect uneven surface for him to graze with his fingers.

John set his tea aside, turning a bit in Sherlock’s arms to rest his head on his shoulder. “It’s okay, Sherlock. We’re home, now.”


End file.
